Sale: CNG 63, Lot: 162. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 May 2003.  Sold For $240. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Alexander III. 336-323 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.17 gm). Amphipolis mint. Struck 315-294 BC. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion's skin headdress / Zeus seated left, holding eagle and sceptre; L and torch before, monogram under throne. Price 447; Müller 37. Good VF. ($300)

It is possible that since Kassander controlled the mint at this time, he struck this issue at Amphipolis on behalf of Lysimachos, who had no operating mints in his satrapy of Thrace. Such an arrangement resulted from the special relationship that Kassander and Lysimachos had developed in 315 BC, and there is evidence to support Price's theory that the L in this issue refers to Lysimachos (see, e.g., Lund, Lysimachus: A Study in Early Hellenistic Kingship, pg. 57). This chronology is not without its difficulties, however, since either the series ended by 297 BC, when Kassander died and Demetrios Poliorketes seized control of Macedon, or else Lysimachos took control of Amphipolis upon Kassander's death, rather than in 288 BCas is commonly believed.